American 'Lone-Wolf' Muslim Terrorist Arrested

Lone-wolf Muslim terrorist attack in Arkansas. A US soldier was killed and another wounded in a shooting by a convert to Islam, now in custody.

By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

First Publish: 6/2/2009, 9:23 AM / Last Update: 6/2/2009, 10:03 AM

Israel News Photo: Channel 7 KATV

A convert to Islam carried out what appears to be a lone-wolf terrorist attack Monday morning in Little Rock, Arkansas, shooting and killing a U.S. soldier and wounding another. Police have the confessed jihadist in custody.

The suspect was identified as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe. Muhammad, 24, was arrested after a brief chase and charged with first-degree murder, as well as terror charges.

Based on the police department's initial interrogation, the shooter acted out of "political and religious motives... with the specific purpose of targeting military personnel." As of now, he is assumed to have acted "alone and of his own accord," a police spokesman emphasized. A spokesman for the FBI's Little Rock office said the agency is also investigating the incident.

According to police, at around 10:15 a.m. Muhammad drove up to the U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center and opened fire on two enlisted soldiers standing outside. Other military officers and soldiers were in the building at the time, but there were no other injuries reported. Police later recovered an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a pistol from Muhammad's black SUV.

The murdered soldier was identified as 23-year-old William Long, who died shortly after being transported to a Little Rock hospital. The second wounded soldier remains hospitalized in stable condition.

Last month, FBI agents arrested four men involved in a terrorist plot to blow up two synagogues and shoot down a National Guard aircraft in Riverdale, New York. The suspects in that case, three of whom are converts to Islam, reportedly acted independently of any global terrorist organization and formed their own localized jihadist cell.